Transcript File - MattSmart.org

Truth, & fabrication
based on the “real”
Image courtesy of Pier Corona
I do Construction rather than casting
… so far
Real materials: real clothes, real Earth
Some false dichotomies… (Where do I fit?)
Real materials (craft) vs sculptural casts (art)
“representational” vs “is”
Real Artist vs craftsman
“Anyone can do that. Real sculptors use bronze and stone”
Thus: Real artists don’t use real materials. Bronze and stone are craftsmanship, so
real artists are distinguished from craftsmen by… displaying craftsmanship.
Real artists are identified by making works that are representational, not actual.
1) The dichotomies are inconsistent.
2) Whose rules? ….and 3) …..
PTO
St Francis of Assisi
If you work with your hands,
then you are a labourer.
If you work with
your hands
and your mind,
then you are
a craftsman.
printsplace.co.uk fomr
The Sphere, 1913
commons.wikimedia.org
If you work with your hands, and
your mind, and your heart, then
you are an artist.
Swoon. Interview with Louis
Mitchell and Michael Danischewski
Growth
Sc
al
e
…. The Angel of the North ….. spectacular,
stunning, amazing – big, very big.
…. doubts… the only thing impressive about
The Angel of the North was its size.
…. imagine the statue no bigger than myself
…. and to my eyes what I saw was not a great
work of art.
…. then I decided not to make work bigger than
myself.
…. nothing I do should have its worth or
influence based on its scale – its
ability to bully.
Bill Drummond, KLF, K Foundation
nearthesea.co.uk
image © Aron Demetz, sculptor
Sculpture must be as interesting as reality
by Jamie Reid, 1975, copied from
Max Peintner, Die ungebrochene Anziehungskraft der Natur (Nature still draws a crowd)
pencil drawing 1970/71
Art must be as interesting as reality
… is hard at a festival !
Shambala Festival
Shambalafestival.org
Heiroglyphs
3,000 BC
Recent history’s
default
Words
Elitist
(must be learnt) and
lack emotion
https://tainn.wordpress.com/
Today
emoticons
emoticons
Heiroglyphs
Cave Art :
The origins of
Labour and leisure,
collective pleasure,
expression and rebellion
Lascaux
Words
Potency of
Symbolism:
memories and
desires
gettattooideas.net
Internet Global
connectivity:
People remove
language barriers
and form tribes
selfandsocietyfall2013
Chat break ?
What do these mean to you (and what are they like to sit on)?
Cherokee Chairs
The land is ours, The land is us
Land rights in the
colonisation of America
The Indian Allotment Act (“the Dawes Act”):
the assimilation of native North American Indians.
Chief Standing Bear, a Ponca Indian of the Lakotas,
and his tribe, walked 600 miles though winter to
bury his son after being forcibly removed from
their native territory and burial site.
Tribal land was removed from tribal governance
and allocated into immediate family ownerships,
and to single males – small allotments, effectively
removing collectivised responsibility and collective
management of the land and nature.
Image: Indian prayer sonofthesouth.net
Chief Standing
Bear’s contention to
rights to bury his
son in the tribe’s
sacred ground was
“I am a man”.
This human claim
was assessed
through long court
trials.
Westernised native
North Americans
It was eventually
accepted because
he wore western
clothes, adopted western doctrines, and
asked to be taught how to farm land the
western way.
After the Indian Allotment Act was effected
Standing Bear could have been renamed
‘Sitting Clothed’: a westernised sitting tenant
in the required Euro-American attire. The
chairs are dressed in keeping with the spirit of
those traditional clothing customs of the time.
We can sit on these Cherokee Chairs in
recognition of this heritage’s fundamental
support for our current condition.
The sealing of the chair people reflects the
sealing of free people into a restrictive and
immobilising law and way of life.
The Cherokee are a native North American
tribe.
“Cherokee” means “the real people”.
Other tribe names… what do they mean?
Lakota
Sioux
Kiowa Indian Portrait by Edward Curtis: Kokopelli via
Lynne Buckson from Native American: historical photos
“We did not think of
the great open plains,
the beautiful rolling
hills, and winding
streams with tangled
growth, as “wild.”
Only to the white man
was nature a
“wilderness” and only
to him was the land
“infested” with “wild”
animals and “savage”
people. To us it was
tame.
Earth was bountiful and
we were surrounded
with blessings”
Standing Bear and his family, 1903, several
years after the trial. Courtesy Nebraska State
Historical Society
Cherokee Chairs
the real people
Legacy
Standing Bear Lake park: 396 acres
(Ponca Tribe had lived in 50,000 acres.)
“Standing Bear Lake
park sits in the middle of
various housing
developments.
This makes it
easy to get to,
yet it still offers
a secluded area to relax
and
get away from the city.”
Lessons from History….
2)
Tribal Chiefs rule!
(because they don’t rule)
1)
Headdresses
are awesome!
Lana del Rey – Ride (full length)
Who are “the real people”?
Bacteria (gut)
About 10% of our cells are human. 90% are
bacteria. In terms of number of cells, a person is
mostly bacteria. Bacterial cells are much smaller.
They amount to about 2% of our body mass. So
about 1½ litres of each of “us” is bacteria.
Mostly good bacteria!
A person is a collective.
Are
ghosts
people
?
Hackney and Greenwich
Images courtesy of The Plague Doctor
missingpeople.org.uk
Images: JamieDodgerland, Jemima Broadbridge
Chivaree Circus